Some of you who know me will know that for nearly 2 years now, I have been attempting to fill a gap in APRS coverage with MB7RDJ, a receive-only APRS igate. This worked fairly well, and did indeed appear to fill a gap in coverage.
Recently I came into ownership of a Motorola GM360 VHF transceiver, and after a couple of discussions with some friends, it seemed like it might be a good idea to permanently close down MB7RDJ, in favour of replacing it with MB7UDJ, a fully transmit capable igate and digipeater.
A few e-mails back and forth with Steve Morton, G8SFR, who co-ordinates NoVs for these kinds of devices yielded the result I was hoping for – instructions on the process for converting my receive-only NoV into a fully transmit-approved NoV for unattended permanent operation. Thanks to Steve for being as helpful and responsive as he was, and for doing the right paperwork so that Ofcom granted the Nov a mere 4 working days after application – doubly helpful as this included a weekend.
For those interested, the process was relatively simple – first apply for a ‘Second NoV’ to permanently revoke and close down MB7RDJ, and then apply for a ‘new repeater’ NoV for MB7UDJ, specifying all the same details as before, but including the new transmitter details too.
I’ll post a technical set-up post at a later date, including some of the nuances I discovered whilst setting up the node. For now, though, please make use of MB7UDJ for APRS digipeating and gating of packets!
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